


Icarus

by ColorfulStabwound



Series: The Death of Draco Malfoy [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, Drunken Confessions, Hurt, Madness, Malfoy Manor, Second Person, icarus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:14:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorfulStabwound/pseuds/ColorfulStabwound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war may have ripped you apart, but the trials are what truly did you in. There is nothing quite as horrifying as being forced to listen to a stranger tell an entire room full of judging eyes all of the horrible things you have done and you still have nightmares about it.  You still see them; the countless sets of eyes watching you and laughing at you and condemning you.</p><p> </p><p>Except when you wake you aren’t condemned, you are free, and so you condemn yourself instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Your hands protect the flames from the wild winds around you.

“You’re digging your own grave.” That is what Blaise says to you one night after a whole lot of alcohol and one too many confessions on your part.

 

He’s been the voice of rationality in your ear for as long as you can remember, even back at school when you were quite literally _digging your own grave_. His advice is always solid and you seldom ever listen to it—That is the way that it’s always been. 

 

“But I don’t love her.” You whisper and you sink down the wall you are leaning against and you hug your knees to your chest and wish this wasn’t happening.

 

Your mother had been the one to owl Blaise; a subtle suggestion that he come to the manor for a visit. It’s been months since the trials ended and you have yet to leave the grounds and she is starting to worry about you more than usual. When Blaise turns up, you grunt and tell him to go away and he’s having none of it.

 

“Get off your arse, I’m taking you out.” He all but hauls you to your feet and as much as you’d like to play indignant, you inwardly heave a sigh of relief for the normalcy of the moment.

 

You’re still not quite ready to leave the safety of your estate so you compromise; which is why you are currently leaning against the wall of the stables piss drunk and telling him things you really shouldn’t be.

 

“Don’t you get it, you stupid shit? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You think your mum summoned me all the way out here for a social call, do you?” And when he raises a brow in your direction you almost want to laugh. Almost.

 

“Yeah, well don’t bloody flatter yourself. You are a piss poor excuse for company lately, no offense.” He grins in his way around the mouth of a bottle and you don’t stop yourself from smiling grimly.

 

He was right, of course.

 

“I don’t want to get married.” You say offhandedly as you gaze down into the paper cup in your hand and hope that you wont remember this tomorrow.

 

“We don’t always get the things we want, mate.” His grin falters just a little bit and he quickly fills the void with another deep swallow of fire whiskey.

 

You want to ask him about Theodore but you resist the urge. Drunk or not, you refuse to stoop to that level. Instead you let him lecture you on the importance of retaining pureblood lines and the duties of carrying on the family name while still having fun and you barely hear three words of it.

 

The night passes like grains of sand on a beach between your fingertips and before you know it, you are stumbling up the cobbled path to the manor and tumbling into your bed. You are out cold nearly the instant your head hits the pillows and when you wake the next morning, the hangover makes you feel more alive than you have since you were fourteen years old.

 

The days that followed that night out at the stables with Blaise pass by in much the same fashion as the ones before it. Your mother is constantly at your side and talking in your ear, making subtle suggestions about how to go about courting the Greengrass girl and owling gifts and invitations in your name. Eventually you get to the point where you want to tear your hair out and scream until you are hoarse, but you do nothing instead.  One afternoon you find yourself sitting across from Daphne’s sister for tea at the Greengrass estate and you feel sick every time your eyes meet with hers. Your mother’s words ring in your head and you visibly flinch and hope that she doesn’t notice it.

 

There are still so many things wrong with you and you often marvel at your ability to hold it all together as well as you do. You catch your father staring at you oddly sometimes but he never says a word to you. Hell, he hasn’t said much of anything at all since he’d come home from his brief stay in Azkaban during the trials. You look at him, really _look_ at him, but you don’t see anything different about him on the outside and you wonder if that is how he sees you too.

 

Your mother is much more resilient than the both of you, and has taken to brushing all the nasty things like ‘war’ and ‘trial’s carefully and cleanly under the nearest rug and she never brings them up. Ever. Sometimes you wonder how she does it, how she can walk these halls with her sanity intact after seeing the things that she has and then you realize that she’s always been the strongest link in this family.

 

When you peer at your own reflection in the mirror you wonder what others see when they look at you. Do they see the ghosts of your past behind your silver gaze or the shadows of your guilt beneath your eyes? Do they notice the way your throat works overtime to swallow around the constant restriction, or the veracity with which your fingers shake? The war may have ripped you apart, but the trials are what truly did you in. There is nothing quite as horrifying as being forced to listen to a stranger tell an entire room full of judging eyes all of the horrible things you have done and you still have nightmares about it.  You still see them; the countless sets of eyes watching you and laughing at you and condemning you.

 

Except when you wake you aren’t condemned, you are free, and so you condemn yourself instead.

 

When you look out to the future it tells you nothing at all, and that scares you half to death. You feel like you are standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed and what you don’t realize yet is that you’ve already experienced your biggest fall from grace and you are still only a child.  The armor you wear will only protect you for so long before the rest of the world will be able to point out the breaks in your chains and you wonder if this is what it feels like to descend into madness.

 

There was a time when you thought you knew who you wanted to be in the future, but now you are lucky to know who you want to be at the end of any given day. Your life is a fucked up whirlwind and sometimes you just want to stop and take a breath.  

 

Eventually you find it easier and easier to step outside of your comfort zones and you give in to your mother’s insistence and you hide the way it kills you so deep that she’ll never ever see it.

 

You can do this. You can be this man. That is what you tell yourself every morning when you wake up, without fail, and you wonder if you will ever truly believe your own promises; if you’ll ever feel like you aren’t flying too close to the sun.

 

In the cover of darkness you find solitude to unleash your demons and let them roam free. When the world sleeps you are free and for a few fleeting hours you breathe a little easier and don’t have to think about another tomorrow. You can lie down in the grass beneath the stars and smoke five hundred cigarettes and drink an entire bottle of whiskey even if you don’t like the taste and more than anything you don’t have to keep your armor intact because there is no one there with you to see you fall apart.

 

You’re still so weak.

 

You know it as much as you know your own name and you wonder if there will ever be a point that you aren’t; if there will ever be a point when the stains on your body and your conscious wont make you want to give up. There had been that fleeting moment when you thought you were finally going to be free to live your own life and as you lie there beneath the blanket of darkness you almost want to laugh at how foolish you’ve been.

 

Tomorrow you will wake up and tell yourself that you can face another day and you’ll join your mother for tea. She’ll tell you all about the day she has planned for you and you’ll smile from behind your teacup and although she won’t say it, she’ll know.

 

_This is how it feels to take a fall._

 


End file.
